


A Midsummer's Saga Annotations

by cresserelle



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 07:14:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20093380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cresserelle/pseuds/cresserelle
Summary: Just a bunch of annotations toA Midsummer's Saga.





	A Midsummer's Saga Annotations

**Author's Note:**

> These are some author's notes on [A Midsummer's Saga](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45260920%20rel=). I mostly wrote these for my own future benefit, to let me see what was on my mind when writing this. But I figured that if someone's read this whole thing, they might find this interesting, too? Also I like showing off

###  [Chapter 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45260920): Another Time

[Kontaria]

A _kontarion_ is a Byzantine cavalry lance. The word also recalls centaurs, half-men half-horses from Greek mythology. Kontaria is heavily associated with horses.

[a boy named Aerin]

Air and iron are two consistent opposite symbols in this story (see below), and the name contains both. Aer was an actual male given name recorded I forgot where in medieval Europe; -in is a suffix I stole from some completely unrelated language. Incidentally, Aerin actually is in real life a somewhat uncommon given name of Irish origin – it’s unisex, but more commonly given to girls. How about that.

[A pair of iron spurs…]

Gilded spurs were in medieval times a badge of knighthood, says a Wikipedia page with citation needed. Aerin is trying to fight off his insecurity by trying to be more impressive, rather than accepting his own vulnerability, and predictably it doesn’t make him feel any better at all. Iron in this story pops up around emotional and physical barriers – iron spurs, iron bars, iron chains, the armoured knights, the armoury tower with the dungeon.

[Bovo… Foy… Uradech]

Kontarian names are a mess of Pictish, Celtic, Frankish, Norse, Old English. Kontaria in general is the regular uncorrupted-land-where-people-are-in-touch-with-nature-and-themselves thing played fairly straight.

[…in June like always…]

You can actually reconstruct the timeline of the story using text cues and moon phases with some margin of error. It’s now mid-May. About four weeks from now, Aerin is captured. The night of the Midsummer Festival is six days after that. The entire story spans approximately 45 days.

[The lake was completely still and vast and filled with stars like a second sky below…]

The sky in this story connotes hope and I’ll be harping on that endlessly. Water, air, and wind are pretty much opposite of iron, and will be popping up in scenes associated with freedom, openness to others, change. The sea, unseen but lurking over the horizon, is the end boss of this theme. This isn’t some inventive symbolism that I put in here to be arcane, it kind of popped up naturally. Which is mildly interesting.

[He wasn’t sure if he had anything to offer anyone other than good intentions and a toothy smile.]

Aerin’s entire arc is hugely about his desire to give something of himself. This line is therefore important and will be referenced to in Chapter 46.

Aerin and Gabrielle’s smiles are probably described more than any other aspect of their appearance, no? I know that pretty much the first thing I knew about them when first imagining this story was the way they smiled.

[Limbs shifted, bodies moved, equilibriums were lost and found.]

Sex scenes are an absolute nightmare to write. You have to account for eight limbs, the weight that rests on each, work with instinctive, emotional responses, work with super awkward vocabulary when one poorly-chosen word can kill the mood, and in general you have to be an idiot to even try

[Fuck you! What? No, you fuck you! … he was having an argument with himself…]

Song lyrics are everywhere in this goddamn thing. [An Argument With Myself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtRGQBBHF6s), by Jens Lekman

[Cold water closed over him]

If Kontaria is a pastiche of Central-to-Northern Europe, then this lake on a May night could be seriously fucking cold. But Aerin is currently letting it go, so the cold doesn’t bother him anyway.

[…just floated, unmoving, suspended in the black.]

Aerin is now at the height of his hopes. This line returns almost verbatim at the beginning of Chapter 36, when he’s at the bottom of his despair. This too shall pass, y’know?

###  [Chapter 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45261241): Strange Tidings

[Mistletrush! Mistle… trush!]

He’s singing [Won’t Want for Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=881qFziuGG8) by The Decemberists

[“By Harmen?”]

_Hyarmen _means _the south_ in one of Tolkien’s languages and it’s been one of my go-to placeholder names for ever. It seems to have stuck here, even though Harmen is to the south of precisely fuck all.

[…all over the bleak houses…]

Go read the first two chapters of Dickens’s _Bleak House_, because that prose is goddamn amazing. I’m kind of trying to rip off the feel and the rhythm in these paragraphs.

[…and from this throne, the King of Harmen is watching over you.]

There was a cutscene at the end of the human campaign in the original StarCraft called The Inauguration. It was a cool cutscene.

[But then again, aren’t cliffside paths always more panoramic? Don’t get too close to the edge though. You might fall an awful long way down.]

Foreshadowing is the best thing about writing long stories fyi

[Cyril smiled a lopsided smile and looked to the ceiling.]

Do you guys have some untold backstory here? Guys? Oh fine, keep your secrets.

[General Titulus and …that old bastard, Oren!”]

Titulus and Oren get very little screen time, but the whole large-scale plot on which this story hangs rests on them. They are also a ghoulish counterpoint shadow pair to Aerin and Gabrielle, respectively. Aerin fancies himself a great future warrior, Gabrielle a great future schemer. After each one runs into their counterpart, an actual great warrior and an actual great schemer, and see their absolute lack of pity or empathy, they have some serious re-evaluating to do.

###  [Chapter 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45266668): Eagle

[Brecca]

A hero from Beowulf.

[“Well, you got their Eagle.”]

Roman legions’ eagles were a big deal. They famously lost a bunch of them to the Germans after their defeat at the Battle of Teutoburg forest, and took a whole lot of effort to recover them. Both the name Titulus and his title of a General (kind of anachronistic for a feudal kingdom) are meant to recall Rome. His soldiers’ names are mostly early-medieval Provencal, a mix of Latin and later influences.

[For example, if you ever need to save someone’s life by quickly building a scarecrow, you’re gonna be a hero!]

No, don’t mind me Mr Chekhov, I’m just hanging this gun on the wall for no reason

###  [Chapter 4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45280015): Silence

[See the large map which they keep at the Copper Hall…]

These paragraphs are sheer infodump. Infodumps are even worse to write than sex scenes.

[Free City of Ys]

Ys was lost a sunken city in Breton legend.

[Behem]

Behemoth was an unspecified huge and heavy animal mentioned in the Book of Job. Behem is grey, inert, oppressive. When it first appears, it’s likened to a sleeping elephant.

There’s also a place called Behem in Guild Wars 2. There’s like a jumping puzzle next to it with a neat underwater cave and

[…spiked his breakfast with ground wickwort.]

This wall can fit many guns, Mr Chekhov. Wiktionary time: Proto-Germanic: ***wikkô:** a (male) witch; warlock; magician; sorcerer; wizard; spellcaster. English: **wort** (plural worts) (archaic) a plant; herb; vegetable.

###  [Chapter 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45283081): On a Dark Night

[The ancient man smiled calmly under his sloping white moustache… Uradech said, in his deep rich voice. If he wasn’t the master of scouts, he would have made a great bard.]

When I’m selling rights for this to be filmed, I’m demanding that Uradech is played by Sam Elliott

[Your place tonight is Six Pines.]

The Six Pine Trees was a place in the Hundred Acre Wood, in A. A. Milne’s _Winnie the Pooh._

###  [Chapter 6](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45283327): We Live and Die by Our Choices

[Presently a light breeze rose…]

This is a fantasy story that’s very low on fantasy, supernatural elements. If there is something supernatural about it, it’s certainly the wind’s and the moon’s efforts to help Aerin along. The phrase “light breeze” appears twice, and each time the breeze reveals to him something very important. The moon will do its best to hide him from Harmeni soldiers, both during his capture and his escape.

I don’t even know if there’s something behind it or not.

###  [Chapter 7](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45330379): Black and White

[Behem. Shit.]

“Saigon. Shit.” is the famous opening line of _Apocalypse Now _(1979).

[The castle rose over trees which covered a steep hill]

When I was already underway writing this story I stumbled upon [Ludlow Castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ludlow_Castle_from_Whitcliffe,_2011.jpg) on Wikipedia and was struck by how much the view from south-east resembled the Behem in my mind:

[Gabrielle]

I took weeks to settle on a name for Aerin. Gabrielle was absolutely Gabrielle from the start, and it was clear that there was going to be no discussion about that. No idea why.

[…as she furiously swerved and skipped on the polished tiles…]

So the stereotypical fairy tale story is a knight in a shining armour saving a princess. Gabrielle is definitely a princess in need of saving here, but I’ll just point out that as she moves along the chessboard-like floor, she swerves and skips. Which, on a regular chessboard, is how a knight piece moves. Gender roles aren’t really reversed in this story, they are sort of blended until they’re not very useful anymore.

[Mista]

Mista was originally a major character, but her part ended up cannibalized as the story grew. The servants in the castle have Frankish names, while Paula, Clement and Pelagius are all named after medieval popes.

[The servant girl wasn’t keeping secret stashes of silphium tea for taste]

Silphium was a plant cultivated in the ancient Mediterranean. The plant was used as a medicine for just about anything, and one of its uses was probably as a contraceptive. There's some speculation that the heart symbol is derived from the shape of its seeds ♡

###  [Chapter 8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45401155): Descent

[Dodo]

An actual Frankish name. Also, of course, a famously hapless kind of a now-extinct bird.

###  [Chapter 9](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45401191): Everything Is Terrible

[Gabrielle instinctively scowled and leaned a little bit back, pressing her neck to the collar of her dress.]

Here starts the saga of Gabrielle’s neck. On some subconscious level, she always thinks of her neck as the centre of her vulnerability, and will instinctively conceal it whenever anxious or trying to distance herself.

###  [Chapter 10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45401230): Fantasy

[Philippe… Marc… Alex]

Aristocratic names in Harmen are all high-middle-ages and later, generally French, mostly still in use today, in contrast with both the Kontarians and the low-born Harmenis. More on Alex later.

###  [Chapter 11](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45401251): Despondency

[He remembered that saga of the hero Heges of Elis, who upon being captured by his enemies and chained to a wall by his ankle, managed to obtain a knife, hack off his foot, and hobble away.]

Herodotus in his _Histories_ relays the story of Hegesistratus of Elis who did exactly that. Read _Histories _sometime, by the way. It’s a treasure trove.

[Carry on. Carry on.]

Lyrics of Queen’s [Bohemian Rhapsody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ) will keep popping up for as long as the story stays in Behem, because Behem/Bohemia is a wordplay that absolutely justifies that!!

Bohemian Rhapsody and A Midsummer’s Saga can both be roughly divided into five structural parts, and the lyrics which appear in the story are from the corresponding part of the song.

[The Saga Of Aerin Who Sucked At Stealth But Was Not In The Least Bit Scared To Be Mashed Into A Pulp, Or To Have His Eyes Gouged Out, And His Elbows Broken.]

[Bravely bold Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4rQDyRCZtg)

###  [Chapter 12](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45401275): Curiosity

[The Gods, Honour, and Devotion to the King and the Country]

Nationalism is, again, a little anachronistic for a feudal kingdom, but fantasy is a genre of leeways. The three young monks are a portrait of modern political radicalization of various right-wing types, which likes to think of itself as conservative and traditional but is in fact a lot of short-memory nonsense. Okay I’ll shut up now.

[Gabrielle played with a strap of her dress. About the only thing she liked about this dress was its stiff collar, which she could pop so that it covered her neck. She enjoyed this sensation, the fabric guarding her like walls of her own tiny castle, isolating her slightly, resisting the overbearing Behem outside.]

Gabrielle’s neck returns

[Domalba, the goddess of chastity.]

Says Wikipedia: **Mary Whitehouse** CBE (née **Hutcheson**; 13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was an English social activist who opposed social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permissive society… Whitehouse's campaigns continue to divide opinion. Her critics have accused her of being a highly censorious figure, and her traditional moral convictions brought her into direct conflict with advocates of the sexual revolution, feminism and gay rights. Others see her more positively and believe she was attempting to halt a decline in what they perceived as Britain's moral standards.

Trivia for you: Mary Whitehouse is mentioned in Pink Floyd’s _Pigs (Three Different Ones)_. If you translate “Whitehouse” into Latin, you get “Domus Albus;” if you then ignore all linguistic decency and turn it feminine, you might get “Domalba.”

[The conversation slid from the softness of the youth to its terrible potential consequences, as illustrated by the decline and fall of the Gebra Empire.]

Gebra was a very minor place mentioned like one somewhere in Terry Pratchett’s _Discworld_. The conversation now taking place is a parody of all these times someone criticized a development in society by claiming that this sort of thing is precisely what caused Rome to fall. It’s all your fault, Edward Gibbon.

###  [Chapter 13](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45558994): Majesty

[“And Clement is a wise man,” she retorted, fighting back a wince.]

And Brutus is an honourable man, for what it’s worth.

[Theodoric the Red]

Theodoric the Great (454-526) was a king of the Ostrogoths.

###  [Chapter 14](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45689974): What Are You Doing Here?

[He decided that the lizard’s name was Erik. Unless it was a lady lizard, in which case it was Erika.]

Aerin tends to empathize with animals a lot.

[“I’m Princess Gabrielle. Of Lhamedos,” she added with emphasis.]

Llamedos is, again, a place in _Discworld_. Read backwards, it’s _sod ‘em all_.

[“I bet you thought that stunt was gonna make you the coolest guy in all of Kontaria.” He didn’t respond. “I bet you fancy yourself craftier than Titulus himself.” … He arched back his neck to look at her. “I said, what are you doing in Behem? If you’re not from here.”]

The first sign that they think alike is that they find each other’s weak spot pretty much immediately.

[“Watch your mouth, boy.”]

She uses the word “boy” at first as she would to a servant at first, to underscore a difference in status. She’ll keep using it, but the implications behind it are going to change a whole lot.

###  [Chapter 15](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45722674): Something Nice

[“And I see we got the shellfish delivered. I must say that though I dislike the sea, I like its fruits. What’s better than to enjoy them here on solid land, where the air is still? The cisterns of Behem have quite enough water for anyone. Let us have no meandering, I say.”]

“Let us have no meandering” is a line from the first chapter of Dickens’s _David Copperfield_, where it’s said by a lady enjoying her tea which was imported from overseas. Two more things: the water-symbolizes-openness thing returns, and we learn both that Behem has no natural source, and that Pelagius dislikes the sea. Also, the name Pelagius literally means “of the sea.” The priest is harmless and essentially good natured, but also hypocritical – he’s not what it says on the lid, he won’t practice what he preaches unless directly shamed into it.

[A small plucked quail stared back at him, with an accusatory expression on its beak.]

Wouldn’t a quail usually be beheaded before it’s plucked? I’ll be honest with you, I know literally nothing about medieval methods of preparing quail

###  [Chapter 16](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45744037): A Logical Explanation

[It’s just… I don’t want to die. I’m starting to wish I was never alive in the first place.]

Behemian Rhapsody continues

###  [Chapter 18](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45826066): Or,

[Cicadas sang. Dodo snored.]

Another character makes another decision in Chapter 40, and the line is echoed. What is it with the cicadas?

###  [Chapter 19](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45924394): The Sky Upside Down

[**…**he saw someone’s shadow, a silhouette…]

Originally it was “a little silhouette,” because Behemian Rhapsody, but there’s really no way that a shadow projected by a torch that way would have been little. “I see a little silhouetto of a man” are the opening words of the third part of Bohemian Rhapsody; we’re now transitioning from the second act of the story to the third.

[…pupils growing larger in her irises like some shape rising from the depths to the surface of the sea.]

Ohoho, a metaphor that uses the motif of the sea both for its depth and its colour. I was pretty proud of this one. I was like “cresserelle, you son of a bitch.”

“Irises” and “irides” are both a valid plural form of “iris”, and they’re both all sorts of awkward.

[…her inner lip, the tongue of her own. And for this moment, they were just two happy humans sharing themselves, and all the world around them and all that’s in it was nothing; the stone ceiling above was nothing; Behem nothing; and they themselves were nothing…]

Shakespeare! _The Winter’s Tale_, Act 1 Scene 2. The King of Sicily suspects his wife of having an affair with his friend, the King of Bohemia. His most trusted advisor reassures him that it’s nothing, and a wonderful rant ensues: 

> Is whispering nothing?
> 
> Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
> 
> Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
> 
> Of laughter with a sigh?—a note infallible
> 
> Of breaking honesty;—horsing foot on foot?
> 
> Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift;
> 
> Hours, minutes; noon, midnight? and all eyes
> 
> Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
> 
> That would unseen be wicked?—is this nothing?
> 
> Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;
> 
> The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
> 
> My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
> 
> If this be nothing.

Yeah there’s another fucking Behem/Bohemia pun

[“Aerin, if I see the slightest chance, you will see me, you will feel me, and you will taste me.”]

This line breaks the flow of Gabrielle’s thoughts kinda (she shouldn’t be set on seeing him just yet) and I was going to cut it, but it was too cute :/

[There was wind in the east, and it swelled for a moment, bringing to Behem air from far away places.]

I edited this line in very late. It recalls the final chapter.

[And there and then Gabrielle realized what she wanted to do.]

Note that she doesn’t make this decision now. She realizes that she’d already made it. It actually happened when she held eye contact with him, this is what all the eye contact thing was about

[Shut the fuck up, brain. This is no time for details.]

There is a double meaning to this line, as details will turn out to be incredibly important to their plan. Gabrielle now has no concrete plans, just a vague hopeful vision, and her good mood is largely dependent on not entirely acknowledging their situation. The sky, again, stands for hope, but when she leans backwards from the tower it’s upside down, overruled by the earth. This echoes Aerin floating in another upside down sky back in Chapter 1.

These moments of unfounded hope are unpractical, but without them they’d never get anything done.

###  [Chapter 20](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45960127): Afterglow

[“Oh, there are various gods of my idolatry. Gautier, of the unjustly suffering. Iolaus, the young warrior. Genesmo, of passion.” She put down her mug with a small thud and very slightly leaned towards Paula. “Hermotimus, of getting even.”]

“Gods of my idolatry” is from Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2: 

> Do not swear at all;
> 
> Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
> 
> Which is the god of my idolatry,
> 
> And I'll believe thee.

Gautier: from Wikipedia - **Saint Walter of Pontoise** (French: _Saint Gautier, Gaultier, Gaucher_; c. 1030 – c. 1099) was a French saint of the eleventh century. Born at Andainville, he was a professor of philosophy and rhetoric before becoming a Benedictine monk at Rebais (diocese of Meaux). A story told of him is that while a novice, Walter took pity on an inmate at the monastery prison, and helped the prisoner to escape.

Iolaus: a hero of Greek mythology, lover of Heracles.

Genesmo: passion is understood to be governed by the hormone endorphine. The word endorphine is a contraction of "endogenous morphine." If you take the bits of words that got left out, you end up with “genousmo.” Genesmo! This is the worst wordplay in the entire story.

Hermotimus: of all the nasty little stories relied by Herodotus in his _Histories_, the nastiest little one is the one about how the eunuch Hermotimus took revenge on the man who had castrated him. Spoiler alert: lots of balls were chopped off

[Alright then, Gabrielle thought, there’s definitely no hope that the lady-bitch of the castle will spare him his life, that monstrosity.]

Behemian Rhapsody goes on and on

###  [Chapter 21](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/45985405): Hear the Soldier Groan

This chapter title and the next are from [Intervention](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7UtxUlpEP0) by Arcade Fire.

###  [Chapter 22](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46157506): We'll Go At It Alone

[She’d heard like a hundred words from him since they’d met.]

Romeo and goddamn Juliet fucking Act 2 Scene 2 again: 

> My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
> 
> Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:

[What if he tries to grab her? What, why would he now? So that he can choke her to death and avenge the invasion with a death in the royal family, or something. Who knows.]

Mind the neck, Gabrielle.

[“Gods, no, they will not let you go, never.”]

BISMILLAH NO

###  [Chapter 23](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46181659): By the Window

[And if she tried, with him unchained, would he kiss her back? Or would he seize her and bite through her throat?]

Yeah girl keep that neck safe

[“Ha. His name was Alex. Alex, son of Cyril, Count of Crows… that’s how they call them. See, family crest is a bunch of crows on azure background…” She zoned out for a moment. “No, the little bitch told them that it was I that talked him into it all and he didn’t know how to refuse. As far as I can tell, he got patted on the back and, although nobody commended him, there were just shrugs and talk of how boys will be boys.” She shook her head. “Which was a perfectly okay reaction, and I just don’t understand why I couldn’t have gotten the same. Shit, can we stop talking about me?”]

The hallowed bash.org has this quote among its most upvoted: 

> <Twig> I just had an argument with a girl I know. She was saying how it's unfair that if a guy fucks a different girl every week, he's a legend, but if a girl fucks just two guys in a year, she's a slut. So in response I told her that if a key opens lots of locks, then it's a master key. But if a lock is opened by lots of keys, then it's a shitty lock. That shut her up.

People will genuinely sometimes bring it up, unironically considering it a good argument. I have seen it happen, with my eyes.

This kind of hypocrisy isn’t new. _Anna Karenina_ by Leo Tolstoy tells of an affair between the titular character and a Count Alexei Vronsky. I don’t have the text on hand, but I have Vladimir Nabokov’s lecture on the book. Says Daddy Vladimir: 

> While Anna bears the brunt of society's anger, is snubbed and snobbed, insulted and "cut," Vronsky, being a man—a not very deep man, not a gifted man by any means, but a fashionable man, say—Vronsky is spared by scandal: he is invited, he goes places, meets his former friends, is introduced to seemingly decent women who would not remain a second in the same room with disgraced Anna.

The Count’s full name is Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky. Kirillovich is a Russian patronymic, translating to “son of Cyril.” Vronsky, Vronski, Wroński, are all variants of a common Slavic surname: the _-sky_ part is just an adjective ending, while _vorona_, _vrona_, _wrona_, are in different languages the word for crow.

So yeah, the name can be said to translate to Alex, son of Cyril, of the Crows.

The boy is not the source of Gabrielle’s trust issues, but his betrayal is still definitely hurting. Is this a good moment to mention, completely apropos of nothing, that Aerin is very good at making scarecrows?

[“…proper dirty little slut.”]

Slut is a very pleasant word. It even uses the same consonants as pleasant.

[“Here,” she said, tossing him the small cloth-bound tome.]

Cheaply-made books are somewhat unusual for a medieval setting, when paper and parchment were expensive and you had to write everything by hand. Well, maybe they had a lot of scribes.

###  [Chapter 24](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46211494): Crude

[Besides, she was really fond of that new colt that she found in the dungeon. He could do really fun tricks.]

Aerin is associated with horses even more than the rest of Kontaria. It’s the smile, perhaps.

[The guard was six foot eight and weighed a fucking ton. He’d kick him apart!]

[Washington Washington](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7iVsdRbhnc), an internet classic.

###  [Chapter 25](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46214326): Pride and Punishment

_Pride and Prejudice_ and _Crime and Punishment_ are both, like, books, right.

[“The great teacher, Tobias Aquafresca, whose breath was like a rejuvenating cool breeze to our faith, wrote in his Differentia…”]

Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa, wrote no such thing.

[Gabrielle looked thoughtful. “I’ve discovered this book in the Great Hall library. There are a lot of them there, and they’re surprisingly… decent, diverse. An open, curious mind must have once gathered them. Might mean there was a time when Behem wasn’t all that terrible.”]

There is a background tragedy to Harmen on a whole. There’s also perhaps some hope – recall that the monks, when discussing people they admire, agree that the Crown Prince of Harmen is absolutely not their type.

[Okay, sagas. What’s a good saga for starters? The Saga of the Blue Gemstones, that should do it. Everybody likes that one.

He introduced the setting properly, ancient Kontaria with its supernatural creatures and talking animals and spirits walking upon the earth. He told of the dying sorcerer, and his wish to revenge himself on the world. He went through the story of his hapless acolyte, their struggles against the ruthless warlords of the forest, the trouble caused by the unwise badger, the reproach of the one-eyed bear, the demon disguised as a chicken farmer, the tragedy of the gale, and finally, of the sorcerer’s death and the acolyte’s escape. When he was finished, it was almost evening. All in all, he thought he did a pretty good job. Gabrielle must have thought so to, because she had barely moved throughout the entire thing.]

Breaking Bad. He told her Breaking Bad. (Several lines later: “You are in danger, you moron.”)

Which, incidentally, is a show whose story is driven by the question of pride.

###  [Chapter 27](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46335862): A Kingdom by the Sea

[She reached out and carefully placed near the bars a small flat and round object. He picked it up and examined it, puzzled; it was a hand mirror, in a thin tin frame. “I thought if you held it out at an angle, you could maybe see the sky. Might be silly, but…”]

IT SYMBOLIZES HER GIVING HIM HOPE OMG

[“We’ll conquer ourselves our own tiny kingdom by the sea.”]

A kingdom by the sea is from Poe’s _Annabel Lee_. Neither Aerin nor Gabrielle ever use the word “love” for the feeling they have for one another, but the amount of love poetry that gets referenced from this scene on is somewhat alarming. Speaking of which,

[“Also I can swim, like the dolphins can swim.”]

If Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was the theme of Behem chapters, then David Bowie’s [Heroes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEqSOst1dg8) is the theme of the freedom chapters.

[Through this blissful darkness, she suddenly felt his left hand on her neck, his fingers fondling her in a gentle, massaging caress; she inclined her whole body to that touch, and muttered his name into his mouth.]

Neck!

###  [Chapter 28](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46473472): Breeze

[The problem with writing, he now came to think, is that the Harmeni have adapted Gebran letters, which had been invented for a completely different language. Now, in order to encode most of the sounds, they had to use some ridiculous compounds of the signs that made very little sense if you thought about it. It was a miracle the good people of Harmen ever managed to convey any meaning at all.]

No, I’m never talking shit about English orthography. It’s perfectly reasonable and not at all ridiculous.

[He looked out to the garden, where a light breeze sometimes ruffled the grass and the tiny field flowers hidden within it… There was an elderberry bush under a poplar tree; and for a moment a gust of wind moved its branches away, revealing a smaller bush behind, which was—]

Oh look it’s our boi the light breeze

###  [Chapter 30](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46660654): There You Are

[“Yeah. But aside of that, I want to eat you out.”]

We’ve already learned that Kontaria is a land of great oral tradition

###  [Chapter 32](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46734688): Proposition

[Gabrielle nervously adjusted her collar…]

I’ll keep pointing out the neck

[Alright, she thought, mind dull like an oncoming storm, if he wants to play like this, he’ll get what he wants.]

Gabrielle is great at thinking under pressure, but not so great at scheming. Her whole train of thought here is probably more of a temporary defence mechanism to keep herself sane, rather than a viable plan.

###  [Chapter 33](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46766665): The Peacemaker

[Oren]

I like both the gravelly sound of the name and how the letter O resembles the man’s bald head. Although the name is vaguely similar to Aerin, he is in fact the anti-Gabrielle in this story. I mentioned that in notes to Chapter 2

[…the mind encased in this warm exterior, a mind hard and deathly cold.]

It’s not that Oren is naturally cruel, or relishes in violence. It’s just that he gives absolutely not a single lone fuck about anyone’s well-being.

[Gabrielle treaded carefully on the polished walnut floor.]

Are you seeing walnut wood? It’s dark and dull greyish. Gabrielle with her white dress and blond hair is spectacularly out of place in this room.

###  [Chapter 34](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46897555): Hold

[“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He laid his hand flat on the table. “My lady,” he added.]

<https://youtu.be/tk5hKomP4MA?t=174>

[Hold.]

The scene under the tree is dedicated to all the nineteenth-century fiction characters of both genders who swoon at the slightest provocation and have to convalesce for six months after hearing bad news.

Also this is like my favourite scene in the entire story. You can tell a character by putting them on the verge of a nervous breakdown and seeing them react.

###  [Chapter 35](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/46934509): Crayfish

Just a thing to think about: Gabrielle successfully spikes the food, but the entire kitchen will remember that she stood by the bowls. It’s very possible that she’s already made up her mind about leaving, without realizing it yet, and is working under an assumption she simply won’t be here when they realize that the prisoner is missing.

###  [Chapter 37](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47064766): Seven Steps Around

[“You’ve torn your dress… Your face is a mess… How could they know?”

She paused. He looked like he was about to add something, but didn’t.]

[Rebel Rebel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U16Xg_rQZkA) by David Bowie. He zips it right before “Hot tramp, I love you so.”

###  [Chapter 38](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47065228): But What Are We Going to Do

The title is a line from [Every Planet We Reach is Dead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LDEm8mC-Nw) by Gorillaz, is another clipped rhyme to an “I love you.”

[“Just one man can open it with a hard push.”]

It’s probably one of those gates that has a smaller doorway within it, and it’s the smaller doorway that Aerin will open. Whatever!

[“No. We could beat them, but it will be close.”]

Bowie’s Heroes keeps lurking in the dialogue.

[“Bye, cell,” he murmured, and returned upstairs.]

Seen the movie _Room_ (2015)? Well, last line.

###  [Chapter 40](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47219140): Heart of Hearts

[“He contemplated the night-drowned courtyard for a while still. His mind kept imagining shapes in the mass of shadows. A vague unease crept over him. He felt like he was guarding darkness against darkness.”]

Guards being weirded the fuck out on night shifts up on castle walls is a very neat literary trope. See the opening scene of Hamlet, for example.

[“So you think I can leave you to live here?”]

Last faint bit of Behemian Rhapsody.

[“The gods keep you and guide you, you mad idiots,” he whispered.]

Vulmar, Valdemar and Adhemar were a ridiculous political pastiche with Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck sort of a naming scheme. So I enjoyed this little moment immensely.

###  [Chapter 41](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47264590): A Hundred Steps Forward

[Let there be a light show.]

From Genesis. During their escape, Aerin and Gabrielle will be producing biblical references at an alarming volume. Before this is over, water will change to wine, a girl will pass a boy an apple in a lush woodland, wine will change to blood, and youthful heroes will at dawn emerge from underground, having been presumed dead by servants of a mighty empire, right after a festival celebrating a change of seasons and timed with moon phases. This is after Behem, with its people in charge named after popes and its ostentatious religiosity. Some point is being made that as religions and ideologies gain power, they end up being dogmatic and fighting against the living feeling that sprung them up in the first place. Or something. Whatever, I’m just writing internet porn here, leave me alone.

[His feet were not his feet when he stepped forward. His body was not his body. He felt like he was just a passenger, a watcher from far away. He felt himself move towards the gate more than he actually did the moving.]

Originally I thought I’d write this chapter from a guard’s point of view, like the kitchen chapter was written from Johanna’s, but in the end I liked Aerin’s surreal walk too much.

[“Are you well?” he asked. “Do you have brain damage?”]

[A panel](https://i.imgur.com/RRoNz1C.jpg) from Scott Pilgrim that you may have seen.

###  [Chapter 43](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47363836): Sunshine

[The countryside was deserted. There was no one on the farms…]

[Headlights Look Like Diamonds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_exh76zsfak) by Arcade Fire

[She raised both her hands high above her head and extended both her middle fingers, looking at the castle for the last time, and she stood like that unmoving for a good minute in the rising sun.]

It is definitely supposed to be a triumphant, feel-good image, but I like how her being unaware of what Valdemar has done gives it a tiny “yes but” around the edge.

###  [Chapter 44](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47393746): Shameless

[Her dress, having brushed by so many field flowers, was no longer a spotless white; she now had a garment of many colours.]

Saruman's power trip in Tolkien's _The Fellowship of the Ring_:

> "For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours! "   
  
'I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.   
  
' "I liked white better," I said.   
  
' "White! " he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."   
  
' "In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

The colour white of Gabrielle's dress makes sense as part of Behem's chequered black-and-white, its dogmatic morality and societal roles, which have been forced upon the girl. It's also the colour symbolizing chastity. So of course once she regains her agency, her dress starts gaining many diverse colours. In LotR, the white of Saruman's robe had connotations of a harmony of all colours of light, and his robe of many colours was a sign of discord. Unfortunately, people who dream of harmonious societies often think of a state where everyone who thinks different from them has been either converted or expelled. Harmen-harmony, heh.

[With one quick movement, he yanked her hair and pulled her head back and kissed her on her throat.]

Aaaaand, the saga of Gabrielle’s neck pays off.

[She rested her ear on his neck. She could hear his blood roll through his arteries, the air move through his windpipe.]

Maybe I just enjoy writing about necks. It really pissed me off when I realized I can’t really say “Adam’s apple” in a fantasy story.

[She ruffled Aerin's hair and kissed him under the jaw.]

It does, by the way, appear that Aerin has remained clean-shaven throughout the entire thing. Ummmm it's because there's a plant in Kontaria whose sap works like a strong depilatory cream that will keep you smooth for weeks and they commonly use it on their faces. Phew, dodged a plot hole there haven't we

###  [Chapter 45](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47432089): The Blue Cliffs

[Can’t all of Harmen just leave them the fuck alone? Will nothing drive them away?]

Bowie at his Heroes again.

###  [Chapter 46](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47569189): We Both Go Down Together

[We Both Go Down Together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CiK9AX9Si8) is a song by The Decemberists. About a couple that jumps off a cliff.

You see it’s topical because this chapter is also about a couple jumping off a cliff??

[A leap of memory, a sudden association. And immediately, in a flash, everything connected. The branches, the grass, the cord, the wine. It was enough. It was just enough. He had twenty minutes.]

“Connected” here is an adjective not a verb. It’s stylistically important okay.

[“Cut off my hair,” she said, handing him the knife.]

Yeah if you dabbled in short-post-WW2 literature you probably know that a whole lot of women got their hair cut off for sleeping with the enemy. This was society’s way of rejecting them. Here’ it’s Gabrielle that’s rejecting her society.

[“Gods, it would be so much easier if you were just born a Harmeni noble. We would have met on my vast veranda, and we’d have lived carefree.”… Birds cried, darting around them.]

The chapter’s title song keeps playing.

[She laughed, and leaned closer to him. “There’s just no cruelty in you, is there? You’re just good intentions, lame jokes, and a cute smile.”]

Hey remember this? Arc words! Character development! Oh gods, how very storytelling and shit!

[“Yeah. Yeah, I think we can.”]

From his unmentioned place deeper in the cavern, the 44th President of the United States smiles benevolently. Yes he's literally sitting there, in a navy suit and a red tie. He's holding a cup of coffee. Yes of course it's canon.

###  [Chapter 47](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47592229): Human to Human

[He bit her lip. The tingling warmth building up in him mounted, swelled, and overflowed. With a quiet sigh and a twitch in his cheek he gave himself up to her, collapsed into her and let her swallow him whole, never breaking eye contact, letting her watch him, letting her see his naked soul melt into her. And she watched, she felt, his cock bulging and surging inside her, making her complete, and all her body and all her mind were open and exposed to him, welcoming him, overrun by him, letting him pass through and fill every last bit of her with his presence.]

Well, after all the sex with sub/dom dynamics, they finally kind of meet in the middle. Isn’t it just fucking adorable

[“Look, had they been nothing but gossamer, feather, air, falling so far down they’d still have smashed like eggs.”]

Shakespeare never ends. King Lear, Act 4 Scene 6, Edgar tricks his blind father into believing he’s just survived a jump off a cliff: 

> Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
> 
> So many fathom down precipitating,
> 
> Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg

[The wind subsided.]

Oh sure wind, when Aerin was looking for stuff you were moving bushes around, but now you’re being useless. This is scandalous.

[“They got the ending they deserved,” came the reply.]

You see this line has a double meaning because aaaaah fucks sake

###  [Chapter 48](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054345/chapters/47592433): Far Away Places

[The highland was swaying and humming. The breeze was coming from the east, from far away places, the sea or even beyond.]

Hey remember Chapter 19?

[A curious mistle thrush hopped over and bobbed its head around. It inspected the liquid, and gave it a test swig. It tasted very strange. The thrush took several more swigs.]

When the story started, Leapfrog was drunkenly singing about a mistle trush. So yeah

[She arched back her neck and shook her head; it felt odd, cold and exposed, without her hair… His breath warmed the back of her neck.]

Okay one last time, for old times’ sake.


End file.
